Tiger of the Stripe Blog

Scottish National Party and Nicola Sturgeon must be Delusional

If Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party are serious about another independence referendum (which I very much doubt), they must be delusional. While Scotland's exports to the rest of the UK were £49.8 bn in 2015, its exports to the rest of the EU were just 12.3bn. If Scotland left the UK, either before or after the UK leaves the EU, it would be outside both the UK and the EU. It would then take years for it to rejoin the EU. The worst of all possible worlds.

Worse than that, the UK’s budget deficit was a worryingly high 4% in 2015–16 but Scotland’s was a disastrous 9.5%. Scotland could only afford this because the English taxpayer picked up the tab.